Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/212

186 from distant Finland, manned by bargemen in scarlet shirts which gave such a touch of colour and brightness to the landscape.

I felt almost envious of these poetic barges, and longed to float away on one of them; but, alas, one must not indulge in too much romance in this prosaic age! "The West" was calling—so, with a broken heart, I turned my back on dear Holy Russia.

And there a last time on the platform of that Berlin Station, beside that train which was going to take me away no doubt for ever, I embraced for a last time my good and dear Aunt de Nicolay, whom I was not to see again.

My heart swelled with gratitude, but I felt too choked to express my feelings:

Never have I felt this so much as on that day.

Did my aunt understand the tumult in my heart? I do not know, I do not think so, and in her pretty voice of which I shall never forget the pure, warm accents so full of real affection she said to me, "Renée, you have not consented to recognize the qualities of—and I fear you will regret it." These were her last words, once more she pressed me to her heart, the next moment I was far away.

And when I felt the woods and fields of the Kaiser unroll themselves through the dark night in the contrary direction in which thirteen months before, my heart full of joy, I had seen them flit by—oh, how different it all was.